Happy 2006

Well, it's finally 2006, or should I say, it's already 2006. What a year! I have to say that on a personal and family level, 2005 was the best and happiest year of my life. The coming of Mary was a difficult experience, and the first week of her life was pretty hard....who am I kidding, the first 3 months were incredibly hard. The fact is though, I would do it over again in a heart beat. She has brought so much to my life, and I've been happier that I can ever remember being. 2005 was a year of decisions, of learning and of hardship, but through it all Mary, the cats and Ian brought me comfort and joy. I really feel blessed that I have all of them in my life.

I'm not going to talk about 2005 on a global scale. As far as I'm concerned it was pretty dismal. Between the lingering war in Iraq, hurricanes, record gun violence in Toronto, the vote of non-confidence in the parliament, the aftermath of the tsunami and the return to violence and conflict in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the huge earthquake in Pakistan and the difficulties there, the fact that for every natural disaster more charlatans and con men come out and attempt (much of the time successfully) to steal money from well meaning folks or the Red Cross, the blindness and ennui of the general populace of the world, let alone the USA towards the atrocities that the Western world are committing, the greed of the western world, and how we choose to help people not because they need help, but because they have something we want (Genocide in Sudan, rigged elections in Ethiopia...why doesn't anyone care? Because all they have is dust and Tef), opposition to giving gays and lesbians the same rights as the rest of us, fundamentalist christians giving the rest of Christianity a very bad name, hyper-sensitivity over terrorism (did I tell you about the 9 month old boy whose family was not allowed to get on a plane to Italy for Christmas because he was on the American governments "no fly list?"). Um. And that is only a start, as far as I can tell. Huh, I guess I did talk about it after all.

Anyways, here is hoping that both on a personal and global scale 2006 is even better than 2005 for all of us.